Global poverty is expected to increase for the first time in over 20 years due to the COVID-19 pandemic recent world Bank report says. Up to 115 million people worldwide will fall into extreme poverty year 2020.
in this report Sri Lanka ranks the highest in the South Asia Region in the World Bank Human Capital Index for the second time in a row.
Loss of jobs and incomes incurred by the pandemic has been severe. While workers in almost every sector have been affected, informal workers who make up about 70 percent of the workforce, and especially those in the industries and low-end services such as trade, are likely to be the most affected. The apparel industry, which employs about half a million workers, has been reportedly forced to cut a significant number of jobs. Tourism, an emerging driver of jobs and growth in recent years, has taken a sizeable hit, just when it was recovering from the shock of the devastating April 2019 attacks.
This implies that about 890,000 more people would become newly poor and many of them from the poorest regions in Sri Lanka. This is a significant setback that would imply a reversal of more than five years’ worth of progress in improving welfare report highlighted.
Can read full report
https://blogs.worldbank.org/endpovertyinsouthasia/three-ways-sri-lanka-can-deal-covid-19-induced-poverty
